President’s Message 10.4.26

Last Saturday in Stradbrook was one of the highlights of my year as President despite the loss to Trinity. The match report from John Colclough Jnr is on the Club website. I received so much positive feedback from members, guests, our Trinity friends, the players, parents…a great day enjoyed by everyone. The Bar was hopping late into the night.

We had over 180 at the pre match lunch, sold out for weeks in advance. It was really nice having the Blackrock SCT as our guests. Hopefully we will see many of them donning the Club jersey next season. We were honoured to have Tommy O Brien and Thomas Clarkson, both Club members, at the lunch and Shane Byrne, with his easy going personality, conducted a super interview. The two lads put in some performance for Leinster the following day. A big thanks to Shane, Tommy and Thomas.

After the match, we made a number of special presentations as we bid farewell to James Blaney, Head Coach and our first team Manager John Colclough Jnr and presented Brian Coclough with his 100th AIL cap.

Mick Hearty spoke movingly about the three gents and the massive contribution they made to our Club. James responded and talked about some of the highlights of his time with Blackrock including Paddy Cowhey’s ‘show and go’ vs Wanderers to get us into the Div 2B playoffs, Matty (Matthew in our house!) Dwan’s heart stopping (literally!) winning try vs Greystones in the play off final, Fenno’s drop goal vs Queens after 30 phases and the many clutch kicks from Quirkey. He also spoke about the heart and honesty from the teams he coached in his time and the key people who helped him along the way including Mick Hearty, his assistant coaches, Luke Hickey and Andrew Kealy, John Coclough Jnr, Mark Fallon, Tristian Woods, AJ Ryan, the doctors, physios, the captains and so many more.

A big shout out to Erin, Conor, our caterers, Sandra, Linda and the team in the bar, Tommy and the lads on the gate, and all who helped to make it a memorable day. The Club coped with the big crowd extremely well!

Congrats to Harry Waters who started in the Ireland U19 win vs France during the week.

This weekend is all about Women’s rugby.

Best wishes to Club members Beibhinn Parsons and Emily Lane who start for Ireland vs England in Twickenham on Saturday afternoon, in front of a sellout 80,000 people.

There's a great article featuring Emily Lane on the IRFU's website yesterday, worth a read: Lane. Best of luck also to Sarah Delaney named on the U21 Six Nations squad.

Our Women’s firsts play their AIL semi final vs Railway Union at 5pm in Stradbrook on Saturday. Both teams have beaten each other in the regular season and so we are expecting a very tight contest. Best of luck to Niall, Dave and the whole squad. Please come down and lend your support. This team deserves it. The Women’s international and the Leinster match will both be shown in the Bar. The prize for the winners on Saturday is an AIL final in the Aviva on Sunday 26^th April.

Sunday sees our Women’s J1s play Tullamore at 1pm in Stradbrook in the Paul Flood Cup plate. Again, the squad would love to see as many supporters as possible at the game.

Lots of activities with the Minis/Youths. Our u11s travelled to Limerick on Good Friday for the Shannon mini rugby festival and went unbeaten. Well done to all involved.

There are numerous end of season blitzes and tours being planned across the other age groups.

Please note the following  important dates coming up. Details are in the newsletter and on the Club website.

-Annual Club dinner on Friday 8^th May. Details will be announced in the coming days. I want to make this a great Club night where we celebrate all aspects and sections (Men, Women, Minis/Youths) of our Club. I am asking members, coaches, players (men and women), parents, friends to support the dinner… the more the merrier.

-The Minis End of Season celebration and the Players Awards night in Stradbrook on Saturday 9^th May.

-Golf Classic on Thursday 21^st May in Milltown. This is nearly fully booked out. All afternoon teams are now gone. We still have a few morning slots available and are looking for more tee sponsors and raffle prizes. Please book your morning team &/or tee sponsorship through the Club website or contact Erin in the office. It promises to be another great Club Day.

-The kids Mini World Cup will be held in Stradbrook 11-15 May.

Thank you for the wonderful crowd that turned up in Stradbrook last Saturday and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible down supporting our women this weekend.

All the best

Mick